‘Mr Pearson! What a surprise. How are you?’ I reach over to shake his hand.
‘Very well thank you,’ Mr Pearson says, pumping my hand, his grip tight.
I suppress the urge to wince. Mr Pearson has a strong handshake, and when I say strong, I mean vice-like. I force a smile while he crushes my hand, my mind racing. What’s he doing here? Why’s he making a surprise visit like this? Should I be worried? One of our competitors made a huge round of redundancies recently. Could we be in for a similar cull?
‘How are you doing, Rachel?’ Mr Pearson asks.
Nothing about his placid friendly expression screams, ‘You’re about to lose your job’ but he could just have a poker face. Or else his Botox is hiding how he’s really feeling. Mr Pearson must be in his late sixties, but he’s done everything he can to hold back ageing. His forehead is unnaturally shiny and smooth. He corrected his once-receding hairline with hair plugs a few years ago that provide a wispy and slightly unnatural-looking coverage, but it’s coverage nonetheless, and his teeth have been whitened so much that they practically glow.
‘I’m great, thanks!’ I reply keenly, plastering on an enthusiastic smile, which I hope hides how rubbish I feel inside, although Mr Pearson will probably see through it.
Not a lot gets past Mr Pearson. I learnt that a long time ago. He has an extraordinary ability to see right through people, cutting to the quick of things. His ability to combine an almost psychic level of intuition with razor-sharp business acumen is probably what makes him so powerful. He’s able to effortlessly grasp a person’s strengths and weaknesses, assembling teams like an army general, with a unique ability to envision how relationships will pan out and how one person’s strengths will complement another’s weaknesses. I’ve seen him assessing new recruits on interview panels and his insights into candidates’ characters and predictions of their performance have always been eerily spot-on. I often feel somewhat unmasked around him since he probably understands my strengths and weaknesses even better than I do.
‘Good…’ he replies hesitantly, narrowing his eyes, clearly not quite buying how ‘great’ I am.
He asks about one of the cases I’m working on. I specialize in tax law and I’ve recently been overseeing a case against a drugs company that’s allegedly been underpaying tax. It’s been going well, and I start to feel more confident as I fill Mr Pearson in on my progress. The case has certainly been proving more of a success than my rocky personal life.
‘It sounds like you’re doing an excellent job. Keep it up, Rachel,’ Mr Pearson says, pumping my hand once more.
‘Thank you! Great to see you again,’ I say, pumping his hand back.
He smiles, but his smile is a little tight, as though something’s still bothering him.
He releases me from his grip and slips past me, heading into reception. I’m about to walk down the corridor to my office when his voice pulls me back again.
‘Rachel, pardon me for saying this, but I thought I should let you know, your jacket’s on inside out,’ he says, gesturing towards his own neat perfect-looking blazer, while smiling apologetically.
I glance at my jacket. It’s a gorgeous tailored number I picked up in the Jigsaw sale a month or so ago and it’s rapidly become one of my favorite items of work clothing. I put it on today because it usually makes me feel smart and confident, but in my warped emotional state, I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention. I glance at the shoulder and spot an exposed seam. Mr Pearson’s right. I put my jacket on inside out. Who does that?
‘Thanks for letting me know,’ I croak, cringing.
Mr Pearson nods, throwing a wave at me and the receptionist, before crossing reception and slipping through the revolving doors leading out of the building.
I glance at the receptionist who’s now smiling at me in an awkward, sympathetic way like she’s sharing in my embarrassment. I give her a squirming smile before slipping through the doors and racing to the office toilets.
Once inside, I take in my reflection. I’m a mess. My jacket’s on inside out, my hair looks flyaway and messy from having been blown around on my mad dash to work and I have dark shadows under my eyes that lashings of concealer have failed to mask. My eyelash extensions, which were meant to look good for my date last night, now just look out of place and a little trashy. I look like I’ve been out on the town and I’ve crawled into work with a hangover. I groan, shaking my head. On the one day I look like this, Mr Pearson has to see me. Typical! He’s probably regretting his decision to make me partner last year. I look nothing like the partner of a law firm. I don’t even look like an intern; even they make an effort to look less scruffy than this.
Sighing, I pull off my jacket and put it on the right way around. I take a comb from my bag and smooth my hair. Then I lean close to the mirror and press gently on my eyebags, as if I might be able to zap them away, while staring blankly into my sad-looking eyes.
The toilet door swings open and I straighten up, plastering a professional smile onto my face in anticipation of whoever’s coming in. Fortunately, it’s my colleague, Priya, who I don’t have to be fake around. Priya and I started working at Pearson & Co on the same day eight years ago. We were in the same intake of the firm’s graduate recruitment scheme and we’ve been through a lot together over the years, from our first day as nervous new recruits, to our early years as bumbling trainees, to climbing the ladder with both of us managing to reach partner level. We’re pretty much best friends. In fact, Priya and a couple of the other solicitors at my firm, Sasha and Julia, formed a, sort of, group. There’s four of us, and it’s a bit like Sex and the City meets Legally Blonde. When we’re not all totally overrun with work, we go for lunches together, chatting about everything and anything, from our cases to sex and relationships and everything in between.
‘Christ, what’s happened to you? Heavy night?’ Priya asks, raising her eyebrows.
She’s never been one to mince her words.
‘Hardly,’ I grumble.
Back in the day, I used to have a bit of a work hard, play hard attitude, but like Paul made clear last night, my days of being fun are behind me. These days, I’m all about DIY and home furnishings, apparently.
‘What’s happened then?’ Priya frowns at me, lingering by the sinks and eyeing my reflection.
I hesitate, wondering whether to launch into it when she starts squirming.
‘Damn, I really need a wee. One sec.’ She heads into a cubicle.
‘So what’s up?’ she asks over a tinkling sound.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I reply, gazing blankly at my reflection. ‘I missed my Tube stop this morning, knocked a newspaper out of an old man’s hand, then I saw Mr Pearson, updated him on my case, feeling all professional, only for him to inform me that my jacket was on inside-out.’
Priya bursts out laughing, before her laughter is drowned out by the sound of the toilet flushing.
She emerges a moment later, tucking her shirt into her trousers, while clearly trying to look more serious, although the corners of her mouth are twitching.
‘Sorry…’ she comments, still smiling slightly, before she clocks my downbeat expression and realizes that now might not be the best time to laugh at me.